


Southward As You Go

by LaVeraceVia



Series: Stars in the Southern Skies [2]
Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Angst, Blood Drinking, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hints of Geckocest, Multi, Pre-Het, Pre-Slash, Road Trips, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 03:58:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1843504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVeraceVia/pseuds/LaVeraceVia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He feels the pressure of a body behind his and breath on the back of his neck, has just enough time to think <i>I'm a dead man</i> when he hears:	</p><p>“Miss me, brother?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Southward As You Go

They drive for hours after escaping the Titty Twister, not always in a straight line, changing courses often and sometimes doubling back, but moving ever gradually southward. They stop only to refill the gas tank and empty their bladders. They exchange no more words than are necessary. They pass through daylight and dark and meet the dawn again before Seth feels safe enough to stop for any real length of time. He only does so because he fears he'll fall asleep at the wheel and finish the job the _culebras_ started. They spend that day at a heavily trafficked truck stop, sleeping in shifts. And they drive through the night again.

Two full days after going on the run, they finally stop for a real break. There's still no guarantee he and Kate are far enough away from Carlos and Narciso and their little whorehouse of horrors, but Seth's had about four hours of sleep in the last three days at this point. He's beginning to lose small stretches of time, and he knows he's reached the end of his endurance. He could let Kate drive, but she'd lapsed into a near-comatose silence not long after they began their drive, staring morosely at the endless highway laid out before them, and he's not sure he trusts her not to Thelma and Louise them right out of this world if he lets her behind the wheel. So he keeps his ass planted firmly in the driver's seat. Truth is, he barely trusts himself not to do the same either. So safe is a relative term these days.

When dawn's bursting bright and annoying across the horizon and he can drive no farther, they stop at some crappy little roadside motel. Seth speaks little Spanish and the front desk clerk apparently speaks no English at all, but the Almighty US Dollar is a universal language, and Seth secures them a room on the ground floor, around the back of the motel, where he can park their shiny new "rob me, I'm a tourist" Corvette out of sight from the road.

" _Dos_...BEDS," insert the pantomiming of sleep and then holding two fingers in the air, " _por favor_ ," seems to do the trick, because the guy gives them a room with two queens instead of a single king, thankfully. Because Kate's still doing her Walking Dead routine, standing stock-still in the doorway of the room, and Seth's not in the mood to share a bed with a little girl, much less one likely to kill him in his sleep for his part in this whole fiasco.

Because it is his fault, really. Pretty much all his fucking fault, that the kid's family is dead, and that what's left of his own family is dead, and not-dead at the same time, which is almost worse, and guilt tells him he could have prevented all of this, but something else tells him that this was always where they were going to end up...that something has been leading him and Richie down this road their whole lives. Bile burns sickly in his throat at the thought and Seth has to shake his head to drive out ugly thoughts that cut like knives. Down that path lies madness, and Seth's had enough of that in the last 72 hours to last a lifetime.

He focuses on Kate instead, still in the doorway, not having moved from the same place in the last five minutes. Her arms hang limp at her sides, and her eyes, so alive with intelligence and fight only a few days before, now seem completely devoid of life. The lights are on but there's nobody home, and that scares Seth worse than anything he's seen in the last few days, just when he thought nothing could scare him anymore.

“Kate.” No response.

“Hey, you. Kate. Kate! _KID!_ ” The last is mean, and combined with two sharp snaps of his fingers a bare inch from the end of her nose, but it works. She blinks slow once, twice, and then a couple times rapidly. She meets his eyes, and all of a sudden— _boom—_ someone's driving the car again.

“Where are we?” she asks, looking around as if seeing the room for the first time. Her nose wrinkles as she takes in the faded bedspreads and threadbare carpet.

He answers, “Some fleabag roadside motel. Not as nice as the tricked-out Fuller family RV, I'm sure, but we needed a place to crash and regroup. At least, those of us driving the car for the last 2 days did.” It's mean, but that's always been his way: hurt them before they can see you're hurting. Old habits and all.

He expects her to push back, like Richie would have done, calling him out for being a control freak about the driving, insulting his intelligence at bare minimum, but all she does is look at him, open and worried, and ask, “Are we safe?”

And of course, of course she doesn't react like Richie would have. Richie knew him, knew how much he would give, and how much he could take, and when he wanted to be pushed, just so he could blow back. Richie, who could give better than he ever got, with both fists and words. Who understood that Seth needed to break sometimes, letting rage run its course so he could keep functioning. Who could weather the dark tides of Seth's rage with a fire of his own, so the both of them came out stronger on the other side. But Richie's gone, lost forever, and in his place he has this broken little girl who just wants to know if they're safe.

He shrugs in helplessness, “Safe-ish,” hoping it comes off as nonchalant. “As safe as we're gonna be. We're a whole day's drive from the Titty Twister, and the sun is up, so I'd say our odds are pretty good. Might as well get some sleep while we can. You want first shower?”

She nods her assent, and finally steps out of the doorway into the room. She brushes by him on her way to the bathroom, doesn't make eye contact. Stops in the doorway of the bathroom and, without turning around, says “I killed my Daddy. And my brother's a vampire.”

Seth looks skyward in consternation, thinks _“Really?”_ to whatever indifferent deity is listening. Rubs awkwardly at his scruffy jawline and the back of his neck before retorting, “My brother's a vampire, and he killed my dad,” pauses to see if his words have had any effect, and when there is none, offers, “Guess that means we're a match made in Heaven, Kid.”

Kate turns her head just enough so he can see her in profile, directing her answer groundward, “Or Hell.” Slams the bathroom door behind her.

Seth sighs. From the mouths of babes.

Kate continues her campaign of minimal communication and eye contact post-shower, exiting from the bathroom and heading straight for the bed. Seth's already staked out the one closest to the door, so she takes the other, slipping in and pulling the covers all the way over her head like a child afraid of the dark. Seth watches helplessly as the Kate-shaped lump under the covers curls into the fetal position and begins to cry.

She hides it well. Seth thinks the kid has probably had a lot of practice in the last few months, if Jacob Fuller's tendency toward denial was as strong in the States as it was south of the border. The only giveaway is the intermittent sound of sniffling, muffled by the covers. Each little noise is like a switchblade to the gut. Seth could literally not feel worse right now if he worked on a kitten-drowning assembly line. He thinks he might puke.

He decides it may be time to flee to the bathroom before he gives Kate a run for her money in the crying-under-the-covers business. And instead finds himself in the crying-in-the-bottom-of-the-shower business, right fist pressed hard against his mouth to stifle the ragged sounds escaping from his own throat (he refuses to call them sobs), opposite arm hugging his chest like it's the only thing keeping it from bursting open and dumping all its contents onto the shower floor.

It's weak and ridiculous, and Richie would be ashamed of him if he were here now, but he's not. Instead he's out there somewhere, doing his best mail-order bride imitation for the Queen of the Damned. He's not here now and he never will be again, so fuck what Richie would think. The Richie that Seth knew is dead anyway, or might as well be, scooped out and shoved aside by the Black Mamba's little mindfucking correspondence courses for monsters, so Seth holds his funeral right here, crouched in the bottom of the shower stall.

Thing is, Seth hates Richie. He loves him, but he hates him too, for what he's done. Five miserable fucking years in prison for a botched job, and the _only_ thing that kept Seth going was the thought of his family, of _Richie_ , needing him on the outside. Sure, Vanessa was there, but Vanessa was lost to him a long time ago, and no amount of hopeful planning for a “one day” happy ending was going to fit their broken edges together again. Seth knew they'd never work, even if Vanessa didn't. Because even if they could manage to unpack all their baggage, there was still the problem of Richie. And he couldn't leave Richie behind.

Because Richie was his family, his _blood_ , and you didn't ever leave blood behind. Richie was the one who'd taught him that, all those years ago, every time he put himself between Seth and their father, even if it meant he took the beating instead, and again when he'd pulled Seth out of the raging inferno that used to be their childhood home. After that, Richie had become Seth's home, and Seth Richie's, or so Seth thought, until his brother chose loyalty to a different kind of blood. Not just once, but time and time again over the course of the last few days, and maybe even before that, when Richie and Fangface began their little schizo psychic love affair. Either way, Richie chose that bitch over his own brother, and Seth hates him for it.

Eventually he cries himself out, but not as quickly as he wishes. The water turns tepid, and Seth's washes off briskly, anxious to escape this room and the world of conscious thought for a while. He staggers out of the bathroom with wet hair, clad only in his shorts. He spares only the briefest of glances at a sleeping Kate, just long enough to be certain that she's still there and still alive. Then he's out before his head even hits the pillow.

Seth sleeps 14 hours straight, and when he wakes in the near pitch black room, he sees the lack of light from the slit between the room's standard black-out curtains, and knows he and Kate have slept through the setting of the sun. Great.

He'd intended on hauling ass out of here before dark, after they'd gotten a couple hours of shut-eye, so they could stay on the move at night. A moving target's harder to hit, right? Right. Unless the dumbass with the plan is so fatigued he forgets to set the damn alarm clock.

Kate's still an unmoving lump on the next bed over, the barely-there sound of her breathing assures him she's still asleep, and no monsters that go blood-sucking in the night have busted down the door to kill them so far, so he lets himself rest a little easier.

Besides, they're paid up for the room until the next morning, so why not take a breather while they can? He dreads having to wake Kate just to see the light in her eyes die all over again when she remembers she's waking up in a world without her family. A world Seth helped create. So he lets her sleep.

Plus, he's dying for a smoke, and he saw a pack of Marlboro Lights when he was rifling through the glove compartment of the Corvette back at the first gas station they stopped at. He'd give his left arm for a glass of whiskey to pair with that cigarette right now, but he'll settle for a Coke, thinking of the vending machines they passed earlier, shoved back in an alcove half-hidden by the stairs. He dresses, grabs his key off the bedside table, and exits the room quietly so he doesn't wake Kate.

He's so busy swearing under his breath while trying to iron out his dollar against the corner of the Coke machine with hands made shaky by fatigue and nicotine withdrawal that he doesn't hear the light step behind him until a half second too late. He whirls around, going for his gun, or tries to, but his assailant is too fast, and an iron grip on his shoulders slams him face-first into the side wall of the little alcove.

He feels the pressure of a body behind his and breath on the back of his neck, has just enough time to think _I'm a dead man_ when he hears:

“Miss me, brother?”

The gun slips from his suddenly numb hand, joining the now forgotten dollar bill on the ground. He doesn't know what scares him worse: Richie's presence, or the shiver of relief that runs down his spine at said presence. His heart's pounding in his throat, but he's mad as hell too, and in the time honored tradition of Gecko-to-Gecko communication, manages to bite out his own greeting.

“Aw, what's the matter Richie? Did Elvira, Mistress of the Dark decide she didn't need a cabana boy after all?”

Richie just presses Seth against the wall harder, leaning closer to use his body as leverage. The breath against Seth's ear is surprisingly warm for a dead man. “Can't a guy just miss his big brother?”

“Get the fuck off me Richard,” Seth grits out, already tired of this game. He's sick of the powerlessness he feels now around his younger brother, a sensation that started days ago, when he found that bank teller with her own eyeballs in her own goddamn hands, and hasn't let up since. Richie, on the other hand, seems to revel in the effect he's had over his brother's life and sanity since this nightmare started.

“Come on Seth, is that any way to talk to the man who saved your life? Multiple times?”

The long length of his body still presses close and suddenly, the fear and fatigue and anguish of the last few days crest in a bright swell of rage. He thrashes back, fighting and swearing and spitting, just hoping to push Richie back away from him long enough to get off the wall, barely able to hear anything over the hard pounding of his own pulse in his ears.

Richie's got the advantage of height and he's stronger than ever, and even the added fuels of Seth's adrenaline and rage don't budge him far. But this isn't the first time Seth's been against the wall with a stronger opponent, and he learned to fight dirty a long time ago. He gets just enough room between his body and the brickwork to throw his head backwards, baring his teeth victoriously when he feels the back of his skull connect with something soft and hears Richie's grunt of pain.

Good. The little fucker should know it's like to hurt.

But his victory is short-lived when, instead of grabbing his mouth or nose in pain long enough for Seth to wriggle free, Richie just grabs him by the scruff of his neck, shakes him like a misbehaving dog, and puts him right back where he was before. Up against the wall.

Ever the spiteful little brother, Richie spits out a mouthful of blood, spraying the side of Seth's neck and the shoulder of his dress shirt. Again he speaks in Seth's ear, lips pressed so close this time that Seth can feel the ghost of each word as it's whispered against his ear. “Careful now brother. You wouldn't want anyone in this backwater town to see two men grappling underneath the stairs, pressed back to front, now would you?” He gives the smallest bump of his hips against Seth's, just to prove his point.

It takes everything Seth has to suppress the shiver that runs through him. He's not sure where this is going, but it scares him. “Quit it Richie,” he says from between clenched teeth, stiffly.

His brother just laughs. “Homophobia, Seth? Really? Relax. This place is deserted. Not a prying eye to be found. Besides, I'm not here to dry hump you in an alcove. I wanted to make sure you're alright, is all. How's the neck?”

The speed with which Richie changes gears on him is so sudden it almost gives Seth whiplash. He's so confused he's practically dizzy with it. “W-what?”

“Your neck. The bite? Is it healing okay?” Richie asks.

Seth's always had the ability to tune out the pain of his body when the situation got heavy. He's been so preoccupied with keeping Kate and himself safe while trying to hold back the tidal wave of fear and grief threatening to break over him, he's barely spared the wound at the juncture of neck and shoulder a second thought since it happened. He remembers a vague stinging from his shoulder as the water rushed over it in the shower earlier that day, but he'd been essentially sleepwalking at that point.

He shakes his head, “I don't—I'm not—it's fine. What the hell do you care for, anyway?”

“Just let me see,” Richie requests, tone placating. Without waiting for permission, he reaches up and peels Seth's shirt away from his neck and collar bone, baring the skin there. He presses a palm between Seth's shoulder blades, keeping him immobile against the wall. Seth can't see anything with his cheek resting against brick, facing the wrong direction, but he's clearly not going anywhere until Richie decides to let him up. Seth can feel the weight of Richie's eyes on him, but his brother doesn't say a word.

A long minute passes in silence, and Seth begins to imagine the worst. Why else would Richie be worried about what his wound looks like? His heart starts to thump in trepidation; his mind is haunted with images of festered, oozing wounds. He can't look. Literally. Finally curiosity wins out over dread.

“What is it?” he grinds out, doing his best imitation of composed. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” Richie says, sounding stunned. He strokes his thumb over the spot. “It's gone.” Seth must be mistaken; he thinks he hears disappointment in Richie's voice.

Seth reaches up to touch the place in question. He's right — there's nothing there but smooth, unmarred skin, like Richie never bit him. Richie rips Seth's hand away from its explorations. “It shouldn't be gone!” he insists.

Seth jolts when Richie lets go of him, using both hands to rip his shirt away from his right side, exposing his shoulder and back, still searching, like the wound might somehow have migrated under his clothes. He runs his hand over the skin ineffectually. “It's healed. Why did it heal?” he asks, shocked. Disbelieving.

Seth's lost. Did he miss something? Wasn't that a good thing? “For fuck's sake Richie. What's the problem?”

“It should have left a scar, but there's _nothing_!” Richie growls.

Dread fills Seth's stomach. He closes his eyes, praying he's wrong. But he's become all too familiar with the sound of his brother going off the rails. Again.

“Look, it's fine Richie, I'm sure your fucking...mystical vampire spit has super healing properties or something,” he says, trying to appease him. “It's fine. _I'm_ fine. Just...let me get my shirt back on man. This is starting to get weird.” But he already knows what Richie's going to do, maybe even before his brother does.

“No!” Richie denies, becoming frantic. He wraps an arm like a steel band around Seth's chest. Hitches him backwards, up against his body. Uses the other hand to pull his head to the side, surprisingly gentle. “I can fix it! I have to fix it,” he babbles.

Seth can hear the tiny *pop* of his fangs descending. He doesn't want to be a vampire. He doesn't want to die.

He pleads, “Stop, Richie. C'mon brother, _stop_ , please—” the last word ends in a sharp gasp, as Richie strikes, sliding his fangs into Seth's skin. Seth moans.

Richie drinks deep. It goes on for longer than it did last time, as Richie closes his mouth around the bite and takes long, gasping gulps of Seth's blood, like a man dying of thirst. He hitches Seth's body back a little each time he sucks, driving his fangs deeper in concert with each deep swallow. Fire radiates out from the bite, and Seth writhes as he rides out the pain, waiting for it to end.

Then something odd happens. The longer Richie drinks, the more the pain begins to fade, replaced by a feeling of floating warmth. The anger, pain, and fear he's felt over the last three days: they all recede, replaced by a sense of safety, of comfort. He stops fighting, lets Richie make his mark and take what he needs, as Seth's body goes limp, supported only by Richie's arms.

Richie has him. He won't let him fall.

He drifts on an opiate-like high, completely blissed-out, barely aware of the world around him, until it all comes crashing back in. A searing pain rips through his neck as Richie's fangs are dragged backwards, ripping through skin and muscle. He hears Richie cry out as he lets go, and Seth crashes hard to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, his legs unprepared to take his weight.

He's aware of the sounds of a struggle nearby. Lightheaded and reeling, he struggles to right himself through the fog of blood loss, needing to find Richie.

What he hears next is enough to throw the world back into cold clarity.

“Really Richard, did you really think I'd just let you leave?”

It's Her.

Seth's able to the get wall behind him, uses it to sit up. He strains to focus on the hazy scene taking place a few feet away, compartmentalizing the pain in his neck and the unsettling sensation of his own hot blood running down his chest.

What he sees horrifies him. Santanico has Richie on his knees as she crouches behind him, one arm banded around his chest and the other at his throat in a grim parody of the way Richie held Seth only moments before. She's pressing into Richie's skin with the hand at his throat, her nails puncturing the skin around his windpipe so five identical lines of blood trickle down his skin.

She's whispering in Richie's ear, too low for Seth to hear, but Richie's eyes, wide and panicked, are on Seth. Their eyes meet, and Richie reaches out for Seth. It draws Santanico's attention to him as well.

When she sees him watching, she smiles.

“Hello Seth.” Seth hates how she says his name, in that mocking purr.

“Fuck you,” he says reflexively. He fumbles blindly on the ground for the gun he dropped, scared to to look away. He knows, with utter certainty, she's going to kill them both. He has to find that gun.

She ignores him in favor of taunting Richie. “Look Richard. Seth's back with us. Just in time.”

“Let him go. Please,” Richie croaks out.

Her mouth is near Richie's ear, but her words are for Seth, “You took too much. He's bleeding to death. Shall we let your brother watch what happens to those who are disloyal before he dies?”

Seth's hand closes around the gun. He cocks the hammer. Aims. “Hey you, Snake Bitch!” he yells.

She looks at him. Bares her teeth in a monstrous grin. “Too late,” she says.

Seth watches in helpless horror as she pushes her fingers effortlessly through the skin of his brother's neck, like so much wet tissue, and then _rips_ , tearing out his throat.

The world goes sideways. Someone is screaming. Dully, he realizes it's him. Santanico licks his brother's blood from her hand. The same life's blood that's choking his brother to death, gushing down the front of his shirt as he gasps for air that won't come. His eyes, huge and terrified, stare pleadingly into Seth's. His mouth opens and closes, mouthing one word silently, over and over again. _Seth...Seth...Seth!_

“Seth! SETH!!”

There are two hands on his shoulders, shaking him hard. He comes awake with a start, sitting up and striking out at the same time. But Kate's reflexes are quick, and she springs back off the bed in time to avoid his wild swing.

The room is dim, but the light from a lone bedside lamp illuminates Kate's face as she stares at him sadly.

“You were screaming,” she says apologetically.

It was a dream, he realizes, barely able to believe it. His neck throbs and he lifts shaking fingertips to the place where it hurts. The bite is really there, scabbed over and sore to the touch, proof he's really awake.

But part of him is still back there watching his brother die, unable to stop it. He swipes his hand down his face, finds it wet.

He can't take the pity written there so plainly across Kate's features. He hides his face and the wetness there in the crook of his arm, leaning forward over bent knees. His shoulders shake silently.

The mattress dips as Kate sits down gingerly beside him.

“Seth?” she ventures. He doesn't say anything, can't say anything. Can't even bring himself to raise his head to look at her.

He's shocked into stillness when she hesitantly wraps an arm around his shoulders, then brings her other arm up to complete the circuit when he doesn't fight her, hugging him from the side as she lays her head above his shoulder blade. She rocks them a little, back and forth, comforting.

“We're okay Seth,” she promises, “We're gonna be okay.”

He wishes he believed her.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Inspiration for title of work and series from "Seven Bridges Road" by The Eagles:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-q7Mih69KE


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